Chairman takes shot at USOC

Olympics

Posted: Sunday, October 12, 2008

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ORLANDO, Fla. - Peter Ueberroth took a swipe at international officials critical of the money the U.S. Olympic Committee receives, setting up some possibly uncomfortable moments for the Chicago group trying to land the 2016 Games.

"Who pays the bill for the world Olympic movement?" Ueberroth said Saturday in his final speech as USOC chairman. "Make no mistake about it. Starting in 1988, U.S. corporations have paid 60 percent of all the money, period. Be sure you all understand that. The rest of the world pays 40 percent. It's pretty simple math."

It was Ueberroth's first extensive response to comments made by European IOC members Denis Oswald and Hein Verbruggen, who said earlier this year that the amount of money the USOC received was not morally acceptable and called for the revenue-sharing deal to be revisited.

As part of a long-standing deal with the International Olympic Committee, the USOC receives about 13 percent of U.S. TV rights fees and 20 percent of global marketing revenues. That added up to about $300 million in the four-year period ending in 2008.

NBC paid about $894 million to televise the Beijing Games, compared to about $7 million from Chinese networks.

Ueberroth, speaking at the USOC's annual assembly where he'll be replaced as chair by Larry Probst, said he didn't respond to the IOC criticisms in the summer because he didn't want to shift attention from the upcoming Beijing Olympics.

"But that's over now," Ueberroth said. "We've been negotiating this one way in the press. But now, that day is over."

It was an uncommonly candid public statement from Ueberroth, who has built his career on getting along with IOC members, playing a huge role in bringing the 1984 Olympics to Los Angeles and turning around the fortunes of what was once a very troubled Olympic brand.

His tenure as chairman runs out this weekend, but he is being kept on with the USOC through next October, when the IOC will meet in Copenhagen, Denmark, to determine the host of the 2016 Games. The four finalists are: Chicago; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Madrid, Spain, and Tokyo.

Keeping Ueberroth was a savvy strategy by the USOC, which wanted to show continuity in its leadership and present a friendly and recognizable face in front of the IOC leaders throughout the bid.

It's hard to imagine Ueberroth's speech playing well to a largely European crowd that resents the USOC's financial dominance over the Olympic movement.

In addition to the revenue-sharing plan, the 71-year-old chairman asserted that the only way for Olympic revenues to increase over the next several years is for the 2016 Games to go to Chicago. He said every time the Olympics have come to America, revenues have gone up, the logic being that the big-money underwriters of the games - American advertisers and NBC - will pay more for an Olympics in their backyard.

Much has been made in Olympic circles of a quote from McDonald's executive John Lewicki, who said at a conference last month: "The international market is very important to us, but some of the cities they are picking are not. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that if it's not Chicago, we won't renew, but if it is Chicago, we probably will."

McDonald's later renounced Lewicki's statement, saying it adheres to IOC policies that forbid sponsors from taking sides in the bid process.

Ueberroth, meanwhile, didn't bring up specific sponsors. But he did note that Chicago, with its large number of corporate headquarters, could offer a "major boost to the Olympic movement if we win. It's not the end of the world, but it's important."

"If Chicago is selected, revenues are going to go up, if it's not, they're going to go down," he said. "Is that good for Olympic movement? It's not good for us. It's not good for the rest. They don't understand where the money comes from. Every time in history when the games have come to this country, it's a big boost."

Ueberroth's talk came after chief executive Jim Scherr announced the USOC will finish this four-year period with $103 million in its reserves, about $63 million more than in 2004. Thanks in large part to increased TV money, the federation's revenues went up $127 million, to $617 million, over the last four years. For the first time, the federation won't have to take out a line of credit to get through the final year of its budget.

The USOC did this while nearly doubling its direct financial support to athletes ($11.4 million in 2005 to $20 million in 2008), increasing direct financial support to sports ($32.6 million to $38.5 million) and nearly quadrupling support for the Paralympics ($3.1 million to $11.1 million).

These initiatives were driven by Scherr and Ueberroth, who came back to the USOC in 2004 to try to steer the troubled federation back on a more stable path.

Ueberroth succeeded and his Olympic legacy is secure, though landing the 2016 Olympics in Chicago would put a nice bow around it.

How his straight talk Saturday will help or hurt the cause will be seen in the upcoming months. But in what will likely be his last major speech as the USOC's leader, he was not in a mood for mincing words. He pointed out that if the money the Olympic movement gets from NBC and its parent company, General Electric, were eliminated "we'd be bankrupt. Seriously bankrupt."

"GE is the biggest financial source, not just to the USOC but to the Olympic world, to all teams, all countries," Ueberroth said. "Sometimes you wonder about that."